Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center

Sitting next to the biology and medical tomes on a shelf in Robert Matusik’s office are two stuffed animals: Lady and the Tramp. They are there in homage to the mouse models of prostate cancer – fondly called lady and tramp models – that Matusik and his colleagues have generated. “We are all waiting for [...]

Carol O’Hare has lived through the ups and downs of cancer over the past 14 years – all at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. A stage III breast cancer survivor, she was diagnosed in 1997 and treated by David Johnson, M.D., who was director of the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the time, and Dan Beauchamp, [...]

Sam Dick, 54, a television news anchor in Lexington, Ky., had just watched his father die from prostate cancer when he got the news last fall that he had the disease. He and his wife wanted a cure and decided that surgery was the best option. They learned from online research and conversations with physicians [...]

Kort Nygard, Ph.D., 69, a clinical psychologist, considers himself a “skilled practitioner in the art of denial.” He was happy to defer treatment when his first biopsy showed he had prostate cancer. On a second biopsy though, his cancer had spread. His physician, David Penson, M.D., said it was time to treat and laid out [...]

Jim Davidson, Ph.D., 68, a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Vanderbilt, talked to a couple of friends and colleagues after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. One had radiation therapy in the 1970s; the other had surgery about 15 years ago. “So from my huge statistical sampling of two, I had a [...]

Though they lived and work in similar circles, it took a neuroendocrine cancer diagnosis for Mary Anne Harwell and Jeannie Hastings to really get to know one another. Jeannie and Mary Anne were diagnosed with neuroendocrine tumors of the colon within days of each other. Their husbands Jim Hastings and Jonny Harwell agree that it [...]

About a third of patients who are treated for localized prostate cancer will have a recurrence, says David Penson, M.D., MPH. A small percentage of patients already have metastatic prostate cancer – cancer that has spread beyond the prostate gland – when they are first diagnosed. “Metastatic prostate cancer is a tiger that’s out of [...]

Breast cancer survivor Adrien MacKenzie isn’t satisfied with simply being a cancer “survivor.” She wants to be a “thriver.” “It’s going to be a while before I get over that ‘I just got over chemotherapy’ look,” she acknowledges, “but I don’t want to always identify as ‘the cancer patient’ or ‘cancer survivor’ in the room.” [...]